On Monday morning, dozens of postal workers and labour activists blocked trucks from entering a Purolator warehouse in Montreal. The postal workers, represented by CUPW, began a strike last Thursday after the federal government gave Canada Post permission to drastically cut services across the country.
At 10:00 a.m., the group of workers began blocking two entrances to Purolator’s warehouse in Ville-Saint-Laurent, a major industrial hub in the northwest of Montreal. Besides the postal workers, former Amazon workers and members of the labour group Workers’ Alliance were in attendance. The blockade lasted just under two hours before being dispersed by Montreal police.
Purolator is a private courier company that is 91% owned by Canada Post. Doug Ettinger, the CEO of Canada Post, sits on its board of directors of Purolator.
“What does [Ettinger] do? He takes Canada Post's customers, sends them to his subsidiary Purolator, and then comes out and says that Canada Post is running a deficit of several billion,” explains Raymond Viel, President of the Montreal local of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW). “Money is coming out of one pocket and going into the other. That's also why our negotiations with Canada Post have now been going on for almost two years.”
During CUPW’s last round of strikes in late 2024, Purolator workers reported receiving large amounts of Canada Post freight. This included packages sent by federal government offices, which are required by law to be sent through Canada Post.
“Canada Post takes great pleasure in sending a flood of packages to Purolator,” says François Kirsch, a union delegate. “The profits generated by this work at Purolator will not go back into the government coffers. They will remain in private hands.”
Workers denounce service cuts and closures
Last Thursday, Liberal minister Joel Lightbound announced that the federal government would lift a 40-year-old moratorium on the closure of rural post offices. Furthermore, the government will permit Canada Post to end home deliveries for 4,000,000 households, forcing people to access their mail at community mailboxes.
“Those people will have to go to the private sector. It will cost two, three, four, five times the fair price to get their medication, glasses, or even food,” Viel told The North Star. “We are also denouncing the fact that Minister Lightbound made a decision without even consulting the public. He decided on his own to cut Canada Post services without consulting the public, which is contrary to postal protocol.”
Central to the postal workers’ demands has been a modernisation of the postal service which would add services rather than cutting them.
“We are asking for a postal bank. What makes more money than a bank? Another bank. Perhaps through the sale of insurance, as we see in Europe, or telecommunications,” explains Viel.
“Canada Post is located in every municipality in Canada. There is something to be done with that. Canada Post has always closed the door on us on this issue, claiming that it was not viable, that it could not do it. But the opposite is true. That is how they will survive.”
Under the reforms permitted by the federal government, Canada Post will instead seek revenue through increases in the price of stamps, a cost which will ultimately be borne by citizens.
Viel says the government should be addressing issues with Canada Post’s management rather than punishing workers and the Canadian population:
“It’s not normal that in 2019, Canada Post had 60% of the parcel market share and now it has dropped to almost 24%. That is not the fault of the mail carriers. It is not the fault of the Canadian people. It is senior management that failed to react in time and adapt its services to the public. That is where they should be cleaning house.”
Kirsch shared with The North Star his concerns about the transfer of money from the public to the private sector:
“We believe that supporting a Crown corporation means supporting a return on investment for Canadian taxpayers. So, it would be in everyone's best interest to support this Crown corporation, Canada Post, rather than promoting private interests, whether it be Purolator, UPS, FedEx, DHL, Amazon, or Intelcom.”
Amazon and Intelcom made headlines earlier this year after the former shuttered its Quebec warehouses in response to the unionization of its Laval warehouse. The CEO of Intelcom, Amazon’s principal subcontractor in Quebec, is Jean-Sébastien Joly, the brother of Industry Minister Mélanie Joly.
“Intelcom is another issue altogether. We know that there are strange ties to people in the federal government,” says Kirsch. “Once again, rather than promoting our Crown corporation and encouraging companies to use it, we have members of the government who may have an interest in promoting Intelcom's interests.”